Amazon.com Guide to Marie-Antoinette

Maxime de la Rocheterie on Marie-Antoinette

"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

A Note on Reviews

Unless otherwise noted, any books I review on this blog I have either purchased or borrowed from the library, and I do not receive any compensation (monetary or in-kind) for the reviews.

Translate

Welcome, Guests!

Wikio Ranking

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

In spite of the black legend of the frivolous queen, Mary Stuart was a hard-working, business-like ruler. Furthermore, she did not have an affair with Bothwell. He kidnapped and raped her. From History Today:

Negative assessments of Mary’s qualities as ruler have
virtually ignored the dispatches of Thomas Randolph, the English
ambassador, who, although sometimes misled by Mary’s statements, usually
was aware of her whereabouts. It is interesting that the register has
no entries concerning her meetings with the council that Randolph
witnessed. In 1561 he named five occasions, for example, when she
consulted with the council that are not in the register. While absent,
she was likely disposing of other business. On 17 February 1566, for
instance, she reported to Sir Robert Melville, another ambassador, that
she had just pardoned John Johnston for delivering English funds to her
rebels and that, as Randolph was then conferring with her council, she
immediately ordered him to leave her realm. His dispatches also reveal
her interest in the law.

In 1563 she augmented the stipends of the
lords of Session and replaced the old ecclesiastical courts with
Edinburgh’s Commissary Court and provincial commissariats. Three years
later her appointment of James Balfour of Pittendreich and others to
revise Scotland’s laws resulted in the publication of the first complete
edition of the acts of parliament, known as the Black Acts, a milestone
in the history and use of statutory law.

Another measure of
success is the willingness of rulers to be seen dispensing law and order
throughout the realm. In her short personal reign, she stayed with 82
hosts in many parts of Scotland. She covered 1,200 miles between August
1562 and September 1563 and travelled extensively thereafter.
Furthermore, in 1562, she approved a financial settlement for the Kirk.
The holders of Catholic benefices retained two-thirds of their income
for their lifetimes, and the crown confiscated the other one-third to
cover governmental costs and to support Protestant ministers. This
settlement accepted the existence of a two-structured church, one
reformed, one Catholic, although priests were still forbidden to say
mass except at court....

Leaving
James in Bothwell’s and Huntly’s custody, Mary went into secluded
mourning. Emerging in late March, she transferred her child to the
charge of John, earl of Mar, at Stirling. Meanwhile, Lennox demanded
that Darnley’s assailants be tried for murder. Scottish justice still
relied on private individuals, especially among the nobility, to obtain
remedy usually in the form of money compensation for injuries to their
relatives. The privy council established a date for Lennox’s accusation
of Bothwell in early April, but when Lennox failed to raise as many
troops as Bothwell for the purpose of influencing the assize’s decision,
the customary noble procedure, he fled to England, leaving Bothwell to
be acquitted, since no evidence was introduced against him.

Bothwell
took the opportunity his success offered to persuade some members of a
recent parliament, while they were at Ainslie’s Tavern, to sign a band
validating his acquittal and proposing that he wed Mary. On 24 April, as
she was returning from visiting her son, Bothwell approached her with
800 horsemen, grabbed her bridle, and warned her it was dangerous to
continue on to Edinburgh. She dispatched an attendant to alert the
citizens who guessed that she was in trouble, but they managed only to
fire their cannon as Bothwell’s forces sped by to Dunbar. There, after
he raped her, she agreed to wed him. Like many other victims, she felt
polluted and refused to reveal the violence for fear of being deemed
immodest for speaking of such matters. To protect her honour, she was
willing to endure religious and political censure.

That her
abduction was opportunistic is indicated by the complication that
Bothwell still needed to divorce his wife, Jean Gordon. Although
Edinburgh’s Commissary Court granted the divorce, John Hamilton,
archbishop of St Andrews, by virtue of his position as papal legate a
latere, also annulled their union. Even before their Protestant wedding
on 15 May, Mary’s subjects began signing bands that led to another
rebellion. In early modern Britain, each female monarch or regent who
married encountered strong opposition from her subjects.

Some
observers believed that Mary colluded in the abduction because she
needed a husband to help her rule Scotland; others charged her with
aiding Bothwell in killing her husband. Validating these rumours
requires disregarding the statements of the French ambassador in
Scotland who claimed after the wedding, which he boycotted, that she
never ceased weeping and was overheard contemplating suicide. The major
evidence for the charge that she was Bothwell’s adulterous accomplice
are the documents contained in a silver chest discovered at Edinburgh
Castle, the so-called Casket Letters. As their French originals, if they
ever existed, are no longer extant, it is impossible to conclude
definitively about their authorship, although it borders on the
incredible to believe that a woman, who learned in her childhood to
cipher all sensitive correspondence, would have so radically rejected
that training. As an English captive, she became famous for her use of
ciphers. (Read entire post.)

Join the Party on FB!

The Joy of Networking

My Friends

La Gazette du Trianon

Disclaimer

The fact that a link is provided here in no way constitutes an endorsement of everything on the other end of the link.

Comments Policy

Comments are moderated. If a comment is not published, it may be due to a technical error. At any rate, do not take offense; it is nothing personal. Slanderous comments will not be published. Anonymity may be tolerated, but politeness is required.

I would like to respond to every comment but my schedule renders it impossible to do so. Please know that I appreciate those who take the time to share their thoughts.